


In the Ashes (Something Stirs)

by xreyskywalkersolo



Category: Birds of Prey (TV), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 14:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xreyskywalkersolo/pseuds/xreyskywalkersolo
Summary: Years after leaving Gotham behind, Fish Mooney returns with plans to avenge the death of Selina Kyle.





	

The city smells the same.

It doesn’t look the same, of course. After the quakes that toppled Gotham nearly two decades before, they’d been careful upon rebuilding, making sure that the new structures could bow and flex if the earth ever shook, like flower stalks bending in the wind. Not that anyone should ever compare the place to flowers, of course. It still stinks of city filth, although she has to admit it’s a step up over the acrid stench of industrial smoke that used to hang in the air like a shroud. 

The alleys are still the same, though, and so is the area around all the old warehouses. She can almost pretend, if she tries, that she’s still running circles around Cobblepot and those idiotic Gotham cops. Well—no need to pretend on that last part. The advantage to leaving town for thirty years is that people stop being on the lookout for you. It’s been almost too easy to patrol her old—

“Fish Mooney?”

……turf. Well, she must have spoken too soon. Still, she’s long overdue for a challenge. Being a metahuman, or whatever they’re known as these days, tips all your fights in your favor and takes the fun out of everything.

She doesn’t move, stays where she is, staring out across the rooftops. “Who wants to know?” she drawls. It’s more than a bit surprising that this interloper, whoever they are, was able to sneak up on her. The enhanced abilities Dr. Strange gave her don’t include heightened senses, but she didn’t get to be where she was by not paying excruciating attention to her surroundings. “I didn’t think anyone still remembered that name.”

“Someone like you doesn’t exactly fly under the radar.” The voice is very young, no older than early twenties. (She considers ‘young’ a bit differently than most people.) “You have something I need.”

“And what might that be?” She turns, eyebrow cocked, but then her gaze falls upon the stranger and it feels like someone has reached into her chest and gripped her heart, because oh, that face, those eyes….

It can’t be. Selina Kyle is dead, dead and gone, and although she of all people knows death doesn’t have to be permanent, this time there is no mad scientist and no lab. This time, it is final. If there is one thing Fish Mooney knows for certain, it is that she will never see her baby girl again.

But god, this stranger looks almost exactly like Selina, from the angle of her jaw to the jut of her cheekbones to the glint in catlike cobalt eyes. Except instead of thick dirty blonde curls, her hair is dark as night, cropped above her shoulders, and she stands a bit shorter than Selina ever did. Fish falters, eyes going wide as her breath stutters in her chest. She has not lost composure in years, never even so much as twitched, but seeing the face of her dead daughter staring at her is something she has no defenses against.

The stranger doesn’t look surprised at Fish’s reaction, but her jaw tightens and her brow furrows. Fish can nearly see the rage spilling off of her, like lava overflowing the confines of a volcano, burning bright and searing hot. “You knew my mother,” she says, and it is not a question. “She was important to you.”

Fish doesn’t respond. My mother. The words roll around in her head, press down on her chest. Selina had a daughter.

“I did,” she says finally, and she is strangely surprised at how steady her own voice is. “And she was.”

“Then we both want the same thing.” The young woman’s eyes gleam in the dark, irises shifting from cobalt to ice blue. “Revenge.”

“I see you’ve inherited her powers.” Fish steps closer. There is a chill running through her blood, a chill she has not felt since long before she left her city behind. Bloodlust was never a familiarity for her; she always preferred finesse where possible, and to make things quick and simple when it was not, but she remembers the calm before the kill. She came here with the intent of locating the Joker, of putting the mad dog of Gotham down, but even with her powers, she’s not stupid enough to imagine she would be able to defeat him on her own. The Joker is a different kind of criminal, insane and violent in a way the felons of her day never were, but he’s also smart enough to give even the Batman pause.

(Briefly Fish wonders if this girl is Bruce’s, and then dismisses the doubt when she sees the fire burning in those bright blue eyes.)

“I don’t think they’re quite as powerful as hers. I’m half human. Doesn’t matter, though.” The stranger lifts her head, shoulders squared, staring Fish straight in the eye. “I can get the job done.”

“You think you can face the worst criminal this place has ever seen?” She can’t deny the steel in this one is attractive. Or the darkness that swirls in her eyes like a howling storm threatening to break.

The woman half-smirks, one corner of her lips twisting up. “Including you?”

In spite of everything, Fish feels a smile growing. “Well, I never said that.”

“I want his head,” she snarls, eyes sparking, and oh, there is Selina, that barely contained, vibrating anger, lip curling just the same as her daughter. “I want his blood.”

“When we’re done with him, he won’t have either.” Fish flexes her hands, feels her power course beneath her skin, feels that chill spread up her limbs, and she has missed this. “But in the end, his life is mine, do you understand?”

The girl’s jaw flexes, but she offers no argument, instead nodding once. Fish steps closer again, sizes the girl up, calculating. “You think you’re up for this?”

“I watched my mother bleed out in front of me.” The reply shakes with a grief Fish wishes she could feel. “I’ve been ready since the last breath she took.” 

“What is your name, girl?” Fish asks, and if her voice is gentler than she intended it to be, she can’t quite find it in her blackened heart to care.

“Huntress,” the girl says, but Fish scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“Not your idiotic hero name. Your real name.” She thinks, for the briefest span of a second, that Selina would be proud of her daughter for following her father’s footsteps, then wonders if that was what Selina ever wanted at all.

There is a beat of uncertainty, a breath, and then, “Helena. My name is Helena.”

“Helena,” Fish repeats, tries not to think of an afternoon where, weak with pain and exhaustion from her then-deadly powers, she had lain close to oblivion, the only tether to consciousness Selina’s voice as she told Fish about the mother who had left her and never come home. “Well, Helena…….” She flexes her fingers again, unable to stop the manic grin that comes as her powers stir within her, rising to her aid, ready to heed her call. “Shall we begin?”

Helena’s lip curls again, a snarl rumbling low in her chest. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fish is definitely going to adopt Selina in the show and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. I mean, Selina was already so worried about her in that lab! Anyways, this was an idea I had rolling around after extensive conversations with @littlelamplight. I loved Birds of Prey and I'm sad it got canceled. I'd say this will be the lead-in to a longer series, but....


End file.
